Not This Weekend
by othfan326
Summary: He reads it proudly, smiling at her accomplishments and maturity, but nearly spits out his coffee at the last comment on the page, one so clearly from the Brooke Davis he knows and loves that he has to grin.


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**I don't own OTH. Is that supposed to be surprising?**

* * *

"Hey it's me," he says and tries to mask his nervousness. "I'm at the airport and I have two tickets to Vegas." He waits a beat. "Do you want to get married tonight?"

He holds his breath a second while he waits, but he doesn't expect an answer. The phone's still ringing and he's just practicing.

It's somewhere between the fifth and sixth ring that he realizes how crazy what he's about to do is. When he imagines how it will all play out in his head he blatantly ignores what he knows the real reaction will be; what the consequences will be.

So when she finally does answer, he asks if she wants to get away for a few days. They both have more than enough problems at the moment and this would be a nice escape.

After five minutes of prodding she agrees, and at that point Lucas figures it would be best if he didn't try to pop the question again even if he _really_ wanted to.

* * *

They spend three glorious nights together in Sin City and it's probably the best thing they could have done for themselves at that point.

They go to comedy shows and try their luck with blackjack in the evening and then again when they're slightly buzzed later that night.

They always make it up to the room before they get drunk enough to make a scene. That kind of attention is the last thing that either one wants or needs.

So they get back up to the room each night with their judgment impaired just enough to make them clear out the minibar.

When he's drunk he talks. He talks about things that break her heart little by little because she can still hold her liquor better than he can; she can still feel something after the sea of alcohol they just drank. But she doesn't say anything and lets him continue because she knows it what he needs. He rants about how screwed up everything is. How maybe he should give up on writing because his only seems to hurt people.

She doesn't have many answers for him and he surprises them both by saying that he likes that. He comes to her for answers a lot in his life, but lately everyone has been telling him what he feels or who he loves or what he can and can't do, so it's a relief to him that she doesn't say anything to that extent, even if she doesn't say anything at all.

One night she divulges a few of her secrets; the regrets she has from high school, the dreams she has of having her own child instead of adopting, the love she has for the blond boy sitting across from her, and all of her honest opinions on the drama in Tree Hill.

They come way to close to sleeping with each other.

The next morning even through the pounding hangover he can see how nervous and embarrassed she is about what she confessed, so he plays it off that he was too drunk to remember what they talked about.

But he can hold his alcohol better than she thought he could and he remembers every word.

When they land in North Carolina a few days after leaving, their friendship has grown into something so much more. They share bonds now that no one else can touch.

The healing process they went through in Vegas has made them that much closer and once again he finds himself in too deep.

It's the same way he felt when she still had Angie.

He was getting too close; falling for a girl he knew he didn't deserve. A girl he could only hurt by not walking away.

But he was stubborn and didn't walk away.

Instead they grew closer, and everyday Lucas seemed to realize the consequences of his actions more. If he told her how he felt – that he still loved her – it would actually hurt her. Because that's who she is; she's broken and she doesn't know how to be selfish when it comes to love. Instead she'll play it off and tell him to go to her best friend because that's who he really loves.

He hates it, but he can't complain because he made her that way.

He broke her.

* * *

He's been sitting on the rooftop for nearly five hours now.

He snuck up there when she went to lunch with Peyton at 12:30 because he didn't want to answer any questions of why he was sneaking up to the roof. It's just after five now and he's still there partly because he doesn't want to run into anyone on his way down and partly because he just doesn't want to get up. He wants to brood a bit more first.

He finds it weird that he's seen barely any of the brunette since they got back from their weekend getaway. He contemplates why that could be as he stares up at the sky. The skin on his nose and cheeks stings a little from the sunburn he gained from sitting in the sun, but now the clouds have moved in and he's glad that he brought a sweatshirt because the temperature has dropped nearly 10 degrees in the last few minutes; a sure sign of the rain to come.

He looks down from the sky and fiddles with the small tin box that's been in his hands all afternoon.

When they got back from Vegas, Haley had come to him with some serious guilt over showing the predictions to Peyton.

He was mad. Very mad. And she didn't understand why. She knows that the predictions were never really supposed to be shown to anyone, but she thinks he's over reacting.

And he figures she's right because he can't shake the feeling that the tiny pieces of paper are now tainted and he wants to burn them.

But this is nothing. Haley should have seen him the day he came home and he found Lindsay looking through his box of Brooke's letters.

He was livid then. Those letters were sacred to him and never to be shared with anyone else.

It took Lindsay nearly an hour to convince him that she didn't read any of them.

It still took him two days to calm down.

* * *

He stares up at the sky as the few drops begin to fall. It's nothing much, just a light drizzle, but it's enough to send him back into a flurry of memories from that storm during senior year.

He knows he's been thinking too much. He goes on tangents in his head that are so long he can hardly remember what he was originally thinking about.

And that's how he's thought about nearly everything in their small town that day. He's spent an exceptional amount of time mulling over all the drama and he's sick of it, but he can't stop himself.

Now he's asking himself why Haley would show the predictions to Peyton. He was so mad that morning when Haley told him that he didn't give her a chance to explain. Instead he stormed out.

When Lindsay was still in the picture Haley completely supported them and defended them to anyone who questioned the relationship.

But now Lindsay's gone and Lucas can't for the life of him figure out why Haley is suddenly on Team Peyton.

She was supposed to be his best friend; supporting him in whatever _he_ felt, not what she thought he felt.

She was also once Brooke's best friend and for the first time in a while he considers where their friendship is now. Haley had completely supported them in the first part of senior year, she and Brooke lived together, and Brooke was the first person Haley told when she found out that she was pregnant.

He wonders where that friendship has disappeared to. He clearly remembers the time when Brooke and Haley were the best of friends, but now he can't remember the last time he saw them hanging out together. Why isn't Haley on Team Brooke?

Just another question to add to the long list he has formed.

* * *

Downstairs – completely oblivious to her guest upstairs – Brooke fields yet another question.

Some other celebrity had been staying at the hotel she and Lucas were at so there were paparazzi and someone spotted her.

Questions of her public reappearance were being raised and she didn't need her mother there to tell her that it would be bad PR not to answer the questions.

So she agreed to a small interview with the more respected gossip magazine under one condition: it had to take place in Tree Hill.

And that's how she found herself talking to a complete stranger in her store just after five o'clock in the afternoon that day.

The questions had been easy so far. Why Tree Hill? What have you been doing? Do you plan on coming back to New York soon? What's your new line going to be like?

If there was one good thing her mother did for her it was preparing her for interviews. So far this one was a breeze. She even finds herself a little bored.

That is until they hear a door slamming in the back.

That's enough to freak anyone out.

Brooke had spent enough time in that building in high school and now to know that it's the door that leads to the roof.

Her interviewer is obviously scared out but Brooke is so emotionally exhausted from the past week that she couldn't care less if it was a ravenous murderer there to kill her as if it was some horror movie.

Still, she's pleasantly surprised when Lucas is the person who emerges from the back.

She has no idea how long he's been up there, but based on the raindrop marks on his sweatshirt she figures that the rain forced him inside.

"Hi," Lucas stutters out, obviously surprised that she was still in the store.

"Hiya Luke," Brooke says cheerily, her good mood restored with the funny and bewildered expression on his face.

"Um, sorry to bother you," he says quickly. "I'm just gonna go," he adds and heads straight for the door, but stops as soon as he gets there.

Brooke watches him and he seems to hesitate a bit before turning back and walking to her.

He takes the tin box out of his pocket. "This is uh- Haley and I –"

"I know what it is, Lucas," she interrupts him and when he looks at the sadness in her eyes he realizes that she knows it because she read his book. Then he feels guilty. She had never said anything to him that made him think that she actually read his book; of course she knew what it was about, but he didn't think she read it. And now that he knows she did, he hates it because there were too many passages in that book that probably broke her heart a little bit more every time she read them.

Once again Lucas knows that he's responsible for the way Brooke Davis turned out. There's a lot to be proud of there; she's independent and brilliant and an unbelievably loyal friends, but she also yearns for the love that she's terrified of and she has learned to hide her emotions, and that's not something he should be particularly proud of causing.

"I think you should have this," he says and opens the box. Senior year was the last year that he and Haley had time to make predictions properly, so after an afternoon of organizing them, he knows he can find the one he's looking for right on the top. "You should have this," he hands senior year's predictions over to her with more confidence in his voice. He needs to give it to her because she needs to know that what they had was real. Maybe if she knows that then they could stand some kind of chance in the future, because right now with everything that's happened between them and Peyton, he doesn't see much of a chance for them.

"Thanks," she whispers, not really seeing the significance of what he just gave her.

He smiles at her and nods before leaving. She goes back to her interview without opening the piece of paper because not even knowing what it says she knows that it will probably make her cry and she can't have that happen right now.

* * *

It's Friday morning and there's a bit of hope in the steps that Lucas takes through town.

The night before Jamie had begged his god parents to come over to show them his latest accomplishments and they both happily obliged.

Nothing monumental had happened, but there was a moment, one single glance exchanged by the former lovers that conveyed everything Lucas hoped it would.

Brooke had read the prediction and so far he hadn't slapped or yelled at.

He had no clue what was going to happen between them in the future; whether or not her insecurities and his drama would prevent them from being together or whether or not they could actually move past everything together.

He walks to the news stand by the boardwalk and buys the latest issue of Brooke's favorite gossip magazine.

He sits with a cup of coffee and a book at one of the tables outside. He's started reading again because Brooke mentioned it when they were in Vegas. He still loves literature, but she never sees him reading anymore and she remembers the times when he could be found with an old book in his back pocket. She suggested that maybe reading would calm him down a bit; help him forget about all the drama. She was right because less than a week later, he's read four books and hasn't felt better in months.

He flips through the glossy pages of the magazine until he finds the article he's looking for. He reads it proudly, smiling at her accomplishments and maturity, but nearly spits out his coffee at the last comment on the page, one so clearly from the Brooke Davis he knows and loves that he has to grin.

_You were spotted in Las Vegas last weekend, any chance you came back with a juicy marriage to tell us about?_

"_No, not this time," she says and shrugs with a mischievous smile, "but you never know what could happen next weekend."_

He wonders what her answer would have been if he had actually asked her last week.

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**Thanks. Please Review.  
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